Vestele Riverthorn — guide

In short

Vestele Riverthorn is a Legendary Attack champion from the Sylvan Watchers, built for the Arena: she strips and steals buffs, hits everyone while ignoring part of their Defense, and puts Unkillable plus Counterattack on herself. Build her for damage and Speed first — a slow Vestele never gets to take her turn. In PvE she is clearly less impressive than in PvP.

Strengths

• Her A1 removes all buffs from the target, and steals them instead when used outside her turn; enemies with Attack equal to or lower than hers cannot resist it.
• A3: AoE hit that ignores 25% Defense, applies a 25% debuff to all enemies, hits again on targets with lower Attack, and gives her Unkillable + Counterattack for 2 turns.
• A2 ignores Block Damage and Stoneskin — it breaks the most common Arena defensive tricks.
• Passive: 50% chance to deal 100% more damage to targets with Attack equal to or lower than hers, and takes 30% less damage from them.
• Aura of +30% Attack to allies in Arena — reason enough to slot her in.

Weaknesses

• Everything hinges on the Attack comparison: against targets with higher Attack her passive bonuses and the un-resistable part simply do not apply.
• Average in PvE: 3.0 in Clan Boss, Hydra, Chimera and dungeons, only 2.0 in Hard mode.
• Her A2 is single-target — she does not clear waves.
• No Speed or Accuracy buffs of her own, so she leans heavily on supports such as speed boosters and Accuracy buffers.

Where to use

Best areas are Classic Arena, Live Arena, Siege and Tag Team Arena, where her buff stripping, Defense ignore and Unkillable/Counterattack package pay off the most. Faction Wars comes next (4.0). In Clan Boss, Hydra, Chimera, dungeons and Doom Tower (3.0 each) she is situational, and in Hard mode there is almost no reason to bring her.

Stats and gear

Priority: ATK → C.RATE → C.DMG → SPD, with Accuracy on the leftovers. Rough targets: ATK 4,000+, C.RATE 100%, C.DMG 250%+, SPD 200+ (230–260 in Arena with auras), ACC 200–250 so her strips and debuffs land. Resistance is not needed.

Sets: Savage, Cruel or Lethal as the base, plus Merciless, Mercurial or Stoneskin for survivability in PvP. Good relics include Hatter's Reserve, Gorecrescent, Lens of Intangibility and Vigor Mortis.

Masteries and blessings

• Trees: Attack plus Defense (or Support for Arena).
• Key picks: Pierce Defenses, Foekiller, Parting Gift, Piercing Strike, Bloodthirsty Prowess.
• Blessings: Crushing rend as the main damage pick, with Lightning cage and nature wrath as alternatives.

Tombs

Book the third skill first: it has six levels and the last two cut the cooldown — without them the AoE with Unkillable comes up far too rarely. Then the second skill (cooldown −1 and damage), and the first one last, since it only gains strip chance and damage.

Verdict

A very solid Arena unit with a built-in aura and answers to buffs and defensive layers, but not a universal pick — her value drops in PvE and Hard mode. Build her for Arena, where she delivers a 4.5.